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James Marvel
James Marvel '''was an astrophysicist who ended up becoming the second host of Edward Tamaron. Before he was possessed, he lived a happy life with his longtime girlfriend, Mari Warren, who later became Tamaron's slave and concubine. After his possession—which was possible due to an injury he suffered while working at NASA, making him weak enough for Tamaron to take over—he resurrected the Order of Draco as a fashionable revival, the Salawan Order of Draco, and used his power to take over a Boston-based NASA facility. Continuing a drug habit that he enjoyed during his use of his first body, he slowly lost cohesion and became obsessed with going into space with the help of newfangled bosonic circuits. During this time he believed himself to be the Kran Kôr, a title he had learned of from Cyrus Sincodemius much earlier. His plans eventually fell apart when the facility, which he had purchased years earlier, was raided by the U.S. Military, under the direct command of the third man to be named G. Tamaron was hit by an explosion and fatally wounded, but he managed to survive by transferring himself into his own son, Tsutomu Warren. With that, he managed to escape into space, to begin a new career. Biography Before Tamaron Prior to 2003, James Marvel was an up-and-coming astrophysicist working at a NASA rocket lab in Boston. He was deeply in love with a girl named Mari Warren, and they were contemplating marriage. Marvel believed strong in the idea of the Higgs boson, before it was proven to exist, and believed that such bosons could be manipulated with circuitry, such as electrons were. Such a thing could be used to lower the mass of fuel, allowing farther rocket trips with more available fuel. He was working on these “bosonic circuits” on the side while also trying to construct a new ship for a potential Mars mission. Unfortunately, there was an accident, and large piece of the rocket fell and crushed Marvel, placing him in a deep coma. Marvel lay in the coma in a hospital bed for some time, effectively brain-dead. It was at this point that Edward Tamaron, wandering bodiless after the destruction of his physical form by Ska, came across Marvel's comatose form. He entered his body and when Marvel's astral self protested, Tamaron killed him, just as he had maimed Cyrus Sincodemius' form years before. This caused Marvel's body to flatline, and for a moment it looked as though Tamaron would be trapped inside the resultant corpse; but he managed to use his powers of telekinesis to reanimate the body, taking full control and causing “Marvel” to wake up. Settling In Tamaron quickly learned of the existence of Mari, and managed to act as Marvel well enough to continue their relationship. In addition, he was able to blame any strangeness on “Marvel”'s behalf as being a possible side-effect from brain damage sustaining during the coma. When he discovered he was in Boston, he used Marvel's funds to repurchase the old house of Cyrus Sincodemius, and began to consider reforming the Order of Draco. Yet, as Mari grew suspicious and fearful of him, he decided to bide his time. He used his telepathy to drain knowledge from the brains of other scientists to make up for his lack of astronomical know-how, and used his charisma to make the already-popular Marvel into one of the most depended-on workers in the lab. This allowed him to secure funds whenever he needed them; shaving pennies at a time, he slowly began to rebuild his Order and convince local Bostonians to join him, including workers at the facility. He began to turn the lab itself into a headquarters for his new Order. Mari continued to suspect that Marvel had changed too much after his accident, but Tamaron began to sense that she could possibly be an important resource in the days ahead. She had an untapped magical aura that made her a good mother for the legendary Moonchild Master Sincodemius had talked about long ago. He wondered if the so-called Moonchild and the Kran Kôr were one and the same. This idea was reaffirmed by what later turned out to be a misinterpretation of a notebook of Sincodemius' recovered from a secret compartment in the old house. The notebook linked the Moonchild and the Kran Kôr with the celestial bodies, suggesting that wandering amongst the stars in one's physical aspect could result in immortality, by fusing astrological magic and tangible matter. Tamaron filled in a number of gaps himself, oftentimes under the influence of several drugs, which he had continued to use, having held onto a psychological addiction from his previous body. Eventually Marvel was forced to hypnotize and coerce Mari into joining him. He basically erased her personality, leaving her a blank slate that he could use for his purposes. He used her sexual charms to begin to facilitate the rebuilding of the Order of Draco, which he decided to rename the Salawan Order of Draco. He claimed it was a “Neo-Cyaeghic” cult based on the “great wizard” Jadran Merkhaddo. The organization became highly successful once more, and Marvel was tempted more than once to use it to drain the bank accounts of his followers. Once he accumulated enough money, he purchased the NASA lab from the government, and began to use its equipment to attempt his great experiment of traveling into space, to find magic amongst the stars. Marvel's bosonic circuits would make the trip easier, and he began to build a massive space ark that carried incredibly lightweight yet copious amounts of fuel. The Struggle with Sun-Piece By the time of the beginning of the construction of the rocket, Tamaron was hopelessly addicted to heroin and cocaine. He managed to hold himself together long enough to orchestrate his Order, but he began to slip into deep mental illness. His perception of reality became severely distorted, which had the side-effect of enhancing his mystical talents. When intoxicated he was able to control anyone as if they were one of his hosts, without feeling any mental strain; and he could conjure various types of energy on a whim. However, he was also prone to violent rages where he would rant and rave, and occasionally lash out at Order members. Sometimes prior to the 2020s, he was introduced to a new designer drug called “sun-piece”, which supposedly “made the sun explode around” its users. While indeed it was an almost impossibly potent hallucinogen, it was also unstable, and frequently killed its users with six months of use. Thanks to his magic, Tamaron was able to survive long past this, but it continued to addle his mind. He realized when he was in later bodies that he was able to think clearer, and with this he came to understand that the drug's potency was heavily damaging his brain tissues. The Order began to fall apart under the influence of sun-piece, as he began to command criminal indulgences, including cannibalism and torture. Many of the Order members, including by this point Mari, began to use sun-piece as well, causing them to follow Marvel's irrational mandates. Even for a few years into his possession of his next body, Tamaron remained psychologically addicted to sun-piece. The First Son, and the End In 2021, Tamaron sired his first son, Tsutomu Warren, on Mari. Perhaps as a result of his hallucinations, perhaps as a matter of truth, he sensed that Tsutomu was likely a Moonchild. Remembering that Sincodemius required a powerfully-charged mage to be of a certain maturity before possession, he waited until the boy was older before attempting to transfer his essence into him. He had no true love for the boy, but ordered that his followers worship him as a god, so that one day Tamaron himself, in Tsutomu's body, would receive such praise. However, by this point, the media was curious as to what happened within the rocket labs; the rocket ark itself was obvious to viewers, and so they wanted to know what was happening now that NASA was no longer in control. Many people were aware that the lab was owned by a cult, and so a tabloid photographer managed to catch a picture of young Tsutomu. This spread a story that the cult was kidnapping children. Criminal investigations began. Marvel managed to keep both the media and the authorities away through his telepathy, but slowly the effect began to wear off. He realized it would just become a matter of buying time, so that the rocket could be finished and the Order could escape. In 2031, when Tsutomu was ten years old, the CIA intervened, having become aware that Marvel was somehow persuading investigators to leave with superhuman powers. A task force, led by the most recent person to be called G., struck at the base. Tamaron knew it was too late, and dispatched the lower-ranking members of the cult to basically act as cannon fodder as the others climbed into the rocket. It was as finished as it would be, and in his hallucinations, Tamaron felt draw to the planet Saturn, believing that to be the site where he would gain the energies of the Kran Kôr. Mari died alongside the other members as a dozen or so got aboard the rocket. Marvel would have gotten away if a trooper had not launched a grenade at him from his assault rifle. The explosion blew off Marvel's legs and one of his arms. In agony, and slipping into unconsciousness, Tamaron realized that Marvel's body was going to die, and he with it. He called over his son, and ordered him to lean closer, and he kissed him on the cheek. With this kiss, he transferred himself into Tsutomu Warren, shattering and destroying the boy's soul in the process. James Marvel's body then effectively died. As Warren, Tamaron climbed aboard the space ark and declared himself the new Master, as well as the Kran Kôr; for he truly believed himself to be such a thing now. The rocket took off, and the flames from the engines destroyed the lab, the operatives, any surviving cultists left behind, and Marvel's corpse. Personality and Traits Before he was taken over by Edward Tamaron, James Marvel was a kind and simple man, who kept him to himself but still had some friends at the facility at which he worked. He was very loving and faithful to his longtime girlfriend Mari Warren, and the two were planning on getting married. Tamaron's personality was mostly unchanged at the beginning after he took over Marvel's body. However, he was forced to change some of his mannerisms to match those of Marvel, so that those close to him would never suspect that he was in fact a different person. He blamed any subsequent changes in personality to the coma that Marvel had suffered; but, just as he had dropped the notion that he was Cyrus Sincodemius living Edward Tamaron's body, he eventually made it clear that Marvel was dead, and that he was a different person. Kept under control through a variety of drugs, as well as Tamaron's own power, people did not attempt to resist him once this had been made transparent. As time went by, Tamaron became more and more desperate, fueled both by his hounding by the law, and his drug abuse. He also became more obsessed with the idea of the Kran Kôr, believing that if he was not such a being, he could possess whoever it was, and thus gain the vaguely defined supreme power that such a title promised. His magic kept his body whole while his mind was ravaged by the drugs, which caused him to have intense hallucinations of the past and future. His addiction to “sun-piece” was the most crippling, and it would continue until he was unable to find any more. Tamaron's long-lived apathy towards others enhanced greatly, to the point where he viewed Mari as nothing more than a slave, and even his own son as nothing more than a viable host. He was perfectly content with his transfer into Tsutomu, even though it effectively meant the boy's death. To him, it was not Tsutomu the person who mattered; it was Tsutomu the body. During his time as Marvel, Tamaron learned much in the ways of science. Combined with his mastery of magic it made him a powerful foe. How much of this knowledge was erased upon his intense drug use and his eventual soul transfer remains unknown, but he was able to maintain his ship for many years. Tamaron was able to use Marvel's inherent good looks to his advantage. His natural charisma was somehow enhanced by his drug-induced stupor, which also bettered his magical talents. He was disappointed to find that though his magic could hold back the ravages of drug-use, sorcery could not prevent Marvel from aging. From that point forward, he realized that unless he found a better way, his subsequent forms would be mortal, and he would need to possess many bodies to perpetuate his existence. Trivia * The name “James Marvel” seems to be a split reference to certain real-life figures. “James” recalls Jim Jones, who led the Peoples Temple suicide cult in Jonestown, Guyana. Aspects of the Salawan Order of Draco recall the violent end of the Peoples Temple. Jones' middle name, Warren, becomes the surname of Marvel's girlfriend and son. “Marvel” is a reference Jack Parsons, whose first name at birth was Marvel. Parsons was an occultist who studied under Aleister Crowley, who may have been an inspiration for Cyrus Sincodemius. Parsons was also, quite controversially, a prominent rocket scientist, just as James Marvel is here. * Marvel is also based on occultist Kenneth Grant, who was also a student of Crowley. It was Grant who branched off from Crowley's Ordo Templi Orientis to form the Typhonian Order; this recalls the “reformation” of the Salawan Order of Draco. The salawa, a cryptid aligned with the mythical Set animal, a creature identified with the Egyptian God Set. Another name for the salawa is the ''Typhonian ''animal, hence the connection seen here. * The Salawan Order of Draco also seems to recall the Trope-based Church of Happyology. * James Marvel is one of two hosts of the Tamaron Entity that is known to have sired a child; the other is Charles Titan, who was the father of the man who would in turn be the father of Brocelyn Hogarth Brant. Sources and Appearances * ''The Life of Mocata, Volume I' ''(mentioned in all other books)